Will You Pay for Access to NYTimes.com?

The pay wall cometh to the New York Times. On March 28, the New York Times will let you view 20 articles on NYTimes.com per month, and thereafter you’ll need to pay for one of their new digital subscription plans. Print subscribers will get full digital access, and you can still view articles for free if you’re over your 20-article limit by going through Google searches, Facebook or Twitter. That quickly led to a Twitter feed @FreeNYT that promises to link to articles so they won’t count against monthly limits. We’ll see how long it takes for the Times to shut that feed down.

Here’s the scoop on the plans:

> $15/month for access to NYTimes.com plus the smartphone app. Without paying, you can still see Top News on the smartphone app but no section stories.

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> $20/month for access to NYTimes.com plus the tablet app.

> $35/month for all access.

Here’s the letter from NY Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. Here’s the story from the Times on the pay wall.

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We knew it was coming, and by month’s end, it will be in place (it’s already up in Canada for testing purposes). So what do you think? Will you pay up for content on NYTimes.com and its mobile apps, or is the price too high? What price would you pay? Vote in our snap poll, and share your comments below.

Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit.

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